SPICEWORLD (PG)
Directed by Bob Spiers Running Time: 93 minutes Originally Released: January 23, 1998
Reviewed by E. Benjamin Kelsey
* ˝ (out of four)
How do you judge a film that is so bad, but intentionally so? In SPICEWORLD, the highly popular singing group the Spice Girls accomplish their major goal: mocking themselves with a purposely cheezy film and having a lot of fun doing it. If that was their goal, they did a fantastic job. So is it fair to give it such a low grade when it wasn't really meant to be much better than this? Honestly, I'd rather see this film before many others I gave higher grades, so does that mean I graded it inaccurately? Truth be known, I don't really think I can answer this question.
To understand SPICEWORLD, you have to understand the Spice Girls. Unless you're very *very* young, or fairly older, you probably have at least heard of them. They're a group of five busty British babes who've had #1 hit singles and whose debut album sold millions. They're primarily adored by pre-teen girls who hope someday the contents of their training bras might match those of Ginger Spice's (real name: Geri Haliwell) Wonderbra. All five of the girls have these "spicy" names for which they are better known than their real names. There is the aforementioned Ginger Spice, as well as Sporty Spice (Melanie Chisholm, or Mel C.), Scary Spice (Melanie Brown, or Mel B.), Baby Spice (Emma Bunton), and Posh Spice (Victoria Addams), and all of them, to some degree or another, resemble their stage names.
The Spice Girls took the world by storm, and SPICEWORLD is actually a good- humored spoof of all that transpired during their quick rise to fame. It's quite nice to see what good sports the girls are (and not just the one dubbed Sporty) about poking fun at themselves. They don't take themselves too seriously, and that's probably the best thing about them. It's also surprising how natural they seem in front of the camera *acting*, and not just singing and dancing. They're not flawless by any means, but for the most part, they deliver their lines without feeling staged, and, like them or not, we get the sense the five are very at home within their characters (which seems reasonable since they portray themselves).
What makes the film bad is that extreme fans of the Spice Girls won't get enough of their music, while the rest of us don't get enough of a movie. The real point of this is to look at the Spice Girls for over ninety straight minutes. Most of the film is very blasé, but several parts are downright boring, and then they have those sporadic moments that actually make us laugh out loud! If you're a big fan of the group, you probably won't get enough of what you want, and if you're not a big fan, you get too much time devoted to nothing more than "look at us" moments. For the right crowd, the "music video" sequences will be the highlights of the film, but for others, they will serve as three-minute lulls in a hectic-but-overall-uneventful storyline.
Other key actors include Richard E. Grant as Clifford, the Spice Girls' manager, Alan Cumming as the film-maker Piers Cutherton-Smyth who attempts to make a documentary of the group, George Wendt as Martin Barnfield, a producer who constantly works on pitching a Spice Girls movie, and Roger Moore in a small, self-parodizing role. All provide relatively good performances, keeping in mind once again that this film wasn't meant to be acted seriously. Even Meat Loaf shows up as Dennis the bus driver and seems to have fun with it.
While this film is continuously compared to the Beatles' A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, I think that is an unjust comparison. It is supposedly the movie studio that first mad the comparison by way of press kits, but I don't think drector Bob Spiers, nor the Spice Girls, intended it to be so. I think the studios were just trying to boost hype and interest in the film, and have instead, come off rather pretentious. I don't think this film is trying to be anything more than a fun, satirical look at a group that got so big, a movie seemed the next likely step. And what could've been better than a self-indulged yet self- mocking approach? Probably nothing, and so it is.
SPICEWORLD is a movie I thought would be embarrassing to enjoy, but now instead, I find myself wanting to defend a movie I didn't even give a good review. It's bad, but it succeeds in every way it intended. It gives the Spice Girls a chance to play while allowing all those obsessive fans out there to indulge in every brainless moment. Perhaps the group is nothing more than a gimmick. If that's the case, the movie's gimmick is that it *is* such a gimmick! You might be saying, "a Spice Girls movie? Come on!", but when it comes down to it, I think that's the point.
January 23, 1998
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